REFRAINING AND THE EXTERNAL

It is usually taken for granted that the necessary and sufficient conditions for refraining are with respect to mental or behavioral states of agents. Let us call such accounts internalist conceptions of refraining. In this paper, I argue that internalist conditions are insufficient for refraining; and so internalist conceptions of refraining are inadequate. I conclude that a proper account of refraining must contain an externalist condition – i.e., a condition that makes reference to an agent's environment.     

The effects of books and gender constancy development on kindergarten children's sex-role attitudes

The effects of symbolic models and level of gender understanding on children's sex-role attitudes was investigated. Kindergarten boys and girls heard and discussed books whose characters depicted either traditional or nontraditional sex-role behaviors. Attitudes toward males and females were measured before and after the picture book treatment. When the study began, children were screened for gender understanding so that half were able to make other-gender constancy judgments, and half were not able to make other-gender constancy judgments. Prior to the treatment, boys and children who had attained gender constancy were slightly negative toward males and neutral toward females, whereas girls and children who had not attained gender constancy were very negative toward males and very positive toward females. Exposure to traditional books had the effect of enhancing attitudes toward males and decreasing attitudes toward females. Exposure to nontraditional books had the opposite effect of decreasing attitudes toward males and enhancing attitudes toward females. The effects of the picture book treatment on attitudes toward females were more pronounced for children who had attained other-gender constancy. Implications for social learning and cognitive-developmental theories of sex-role development are discussed.     

Early and late selection in partial report: evidence from degraded displays.

In studies of iconic memory using the bar-probe task, subjects see a brief display of target letters and are probed by an arrow to report one of them. According to the classic early-selection account, subjects use the probe to select material for perceptual analysis from a precategorical (iconic) memory, but according to late-selection theories, subjects first identify the letters and then use the probe to select one letter for report from the set of categorized items. Pashler (1984) based his test for the locus of selection on a manipulation of display quality in previewed displays. He presented a target for 200 msec and then added a probe, together with the target, for an additional 150 msec. Reducing the target's stimulus quality increased response latency. If the subjects identified the characters before the probe appeared and then selected an item for report, the clarity of the original array should not have affected response latency. Hence, Pashler concluded that his subjects used the probe to select from a precategorical store (early selection). Pashler's experiment did not force subjects to rely on memory of the target; hence, although his experiment documented a situation in which subjects used early selection, it did not rule out late selection in studies of information persistence. We replicated Pashler's findings and, using his logic, showed that when subjects are forced to rely on memory of the target, they select from a categorized store.     

Personality factors underlying coronary prone behavior patterns among employees

The structure of the coronary prone behavior syndrome was mapped onto the personality trait domain with a sample of 222 adult men and women (mean age=31). The subjects completed the Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) and the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) questionnaires and canonical correlation analysis was used to derive the structure of common variance between the two sets of scales. Coronary prone behavior, when viewed within personality source trait structure, can be thought of as heavily influenced by anxiety and extraversion. Additional regression analyses were conducted to analyze interdomain relationships among the 16PF and JAS.     

Body size over-estimation in women with anorexia nervosa is not qualitatively different from female controls

Over-estimation of body size is a cardinal feature of anorexia nervosa (AN), usually revealed by comparing individuals who have AN with non-AN individuals, the inference being that over-estimation is pathological. We show that the same result can be reproduced by sampling selectively from a single distribution of performance in body size judgement by comparing low BMI individuals with normal BMI individuals. Over-estimation of body size in AN is not necessarily pathological and can be predicted by normal psychophysical biases in magnitude estimation. We confirm this prediction in a dataset from a morphing study in which 30 women with AN and 137 control women altered a photograph of themselves to estimate their actual body size. We further investigated the relative contributions of sensory and attitudinal factors to body-size overestimation in a sample of 166 women. Our results suggest that both factors play a role, but their relative importance is task dependent.     

Psychological effects of permanently implanted false teeth: A 2-year follow-up and comparison with dentate patients

Abstract

The treatment of patients who have suffered total tooth loss (edentulism) has always posed many problems in dental care, since removable dentures cannot restore function completely and can often result in pain and mouth ulcers. An important recent advance is the development of “osseointegrated implants”. This technique involves the insertion of titanium screws into the jawbone and the denture is then attached to this fixed bridge. A previous controlled study (Kent and Johns, 1991) has shown that in the short term this technique is associated with a reduction in psychological distress and the number of dentally disabling symptoms, but no change in self-esteem. The aims of the current study were to (a) conduct a longer-term follow-up of these patients (the implant group) and (b) compare their adjustment with patients who possess their natural teeth (the dentate group). Twenty implant patients completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), Rosenberg's self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and a check-list of disabling symptoms on three occasions: before treatment, six months and 24 months post-treatment. Sixty-one dentate patients from four general dental practices completed the same questionnaires on a single occasion. In the implant group at 24 months, the number of psychological symptoms (GHQ) had returned to the pre-treatment level, even though the reduction in the number of disabling symptoms was maintained. Self-esteem remained unchanged. There was considerable individual variation in changes in GHQ scores, although, on average, the implant group's level of well-being at 24 months was similar to the dentate patients' on all measures.     

An integrated process model of stereotype threat effects on performance

Research showing that activation of negative stereotypes can impair the performance of stigmatized individuals on a wide variety of tasks has proliferated. However, a complete understanding of the processes underlying these stereotype threat effects on behavior is still lacking. The authors examine stereotype threat in the context of research on stress arousal, vigilance, working memory, and self-regulation to develop a process model of how negative stereotypes impair performance on cognitive and social tasks that require controlled processing, as well as sensorimotor tasks that require automatic processing. The authors argue that stereotype threat disrupts performance via 3 distinct, yet interrelated, mechanisms: (a) a physiological stress response that directly impairs prefrontal processing, (b) a tendency to actively monitor performance, and (c) efforts to suppress negative thoughts and emotions in the service of self-regulation. These mechanisms combine to consume executive resources needed to perform well on cognitive and social tasks. The active monitoring mechanism disrupts performance on sensorimotor tasks directly. Empirical evidence for these assertions is reviewed, and implications for interventions designed to alleviate stereotype threat are discussed.     

Timing during inhibitory conditioning

Analyses of second-by-second conditioned responding into a food receptacle by hungry rats (Rattus norvegicus) found that inhibition varies across the duration of a conditioned stimulus (CS) in a manner consistent with initial training. Variations in the arrival time of the unconditioned stimulus (US) supported temporally specific suppression of responding (Experiment 1). Summation and retardation tests (Experiments 2 and 3, respectively) revealed that points of greatest inhibition coincided with US omission at the time normally specified by the excitor. Our data provide a clear demonstration of fine-grained changes in the time course of inhibitory conditioning for the first time.